


We Come Running

by AstrophysicalBean



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, F/F, Historical AU, akko said girl power gay rights and fuck the british, also rated T for excessive use of swear words, be gay do crime, brief mentions of chariot/croix and hannah/barbara, rated T for piratical violence, they're sailors so they all swear like-- well you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26990422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstrophysicalBean/pseuds/AstrophysicalBean
Summary: Northern Atlantic Ocean, three days west of Nassau, 1722In the Golden Age of Piracy, Akko Kagari, the first mate of theGaelic Witch, is injured in battle against the British Navy and is forced to see the ship's new surgeon to be stitched up afterward. Unfortunately, the reclusive new surgeon, who seems dead-set against even interacting with the pirates she now works for, is ridiculously hot.
Relationships: Diana Cavendish/Atsuko "Akko" Kagari
Comments: 11
Kudos: 136





	We Come Running

_For my girlfriend, who proofread for typos and believes in me always. I love you, even though you won’t let me name the cats Carmilla and Lord Mercutio of the Cavendish Estate._

* * *

_Northern Atlantic Ocean, three days west of Nassau, 1722_

Cannon blasts filled the air as heavy chains threatened to pull the ship’s hull apart at her seams.

“ _Hard to starboard! Hold the weather with your fucking life!_ ” The captain screamed into the chaos as she dragged the helm about, swinging the ship with her. The _Gaelic Witch_ groaned in protest as she crashed through the roaring waves, churning dangerously in the storm.

The crew flew across the deck below with practiced expertise, pulling the rigging taut, securing the course as winds ripped at her sails. Gunfire rang out to their starboard as the enemy ship answered the captain’s maneuvers in kind, boring through waves that the _Gaelic Witch_ had merely skirted.

It was a beautiful ship, all gleaming decks and golden trim along its hull. It was a rich man’s ship—and rich men owned it, undoubtedly. Golden letters painted on its side flashed in the lightning, naming it the _HMS Appleton_ as it released another volley of cannon fire.

“British navy, Captain!” The first mate yelled over the cacophony of the night, gripping hard to the gunwales behind the helm, trying not to let her boots slide across the rain-slicked deck.

Captain Chariot du Nord gave her a reckless grin, red hair plastered to her head and coat whipping wildly in the wind. She was a force of nature, with that self-sure smile on her face, as if she had already met her Fates and laughed in their faces. “It’s always the British fucking navy!” She yelled back, then to the deck below them: “ _Gunmaster, ready the cannons!_ _They’re aiming to board, but they’ll have to get on our chase for that!_ ”

The mute gunmaster waved an arm in acknowledgement, already sliding across the deck to her station at the bow. Following were two other mates, splitting off to port to man the side cannons when the gunmaster gave her signal.

“Any idea how we’re getting out of this one, Captain?” The first mate yelled as the _HMS Appleton_ loomed closer to their port like an avenging monster in the darkness. It wasn’t a particularly massive war galley, but it practically dwarfed their ship in comparison. The _Gaelic Witch_ was a fast vessel—one of the fastest on the Atlantic—but she was small. She wasn’t made for fighting; she was made for evasion. And the _HMS Appleton_ had caught her unawares in the throes of the storm, swiftly cutting off any hopes for a smooth escape.

“ _Merde!_ ” The captain swore and threw herself to the side as a bullet crashed into the gunwale behind her, splintering wood in its wake. The first mate drew her sidearm and shot off in the direction of the bullet, clipping the shooter in the arm. Constanze’s improved pistol designs were a godsend. “I’m working on it, Kagari!” 

Akko stowed her pistol and took stock of the scene.

The _HMS Appleton_ was approaching from ahead, not twenty feet out by now, at roughly thirty degrees to their port. They had already hooked chains into the _Gaelic Witch_ ’s hull, lashing the two ships together and cutting off the _Witch_ ’s chances of evasive maneuvering. On the _Witch_ ’s deck below, the crew were securing lines for their course, pulling the ship to starboard to try to pry the _Appleton_ ’s hooks out of its skin. Constanze, their gunmaster, stood at her station on the bow, lining up the sights of their fore cannons, while Amanda and Hannah followed the directions she waved to line up the rest of the side cannons. In the crow’s nest, Lotte provided covering fire with her rifle, aiming for the enemy sailors as they hauled the chains between the two ships, pulling the _Witch_ closer and closer to her death. They were a small crew, only ten against the probable thirty aboard the _Appleton_ , and two of their number were still safely belowdecks.

The cook, Jasminka, would be in her kitchen, keeping an eye on the ship’s cats and standing by to provide reinforcements if the _Appleton_ ’s crew should board them. The new surgeon, too, would be in her office, awaiting any patients that may be rushed to her in battle.

Akko forced herself to move on from _that_ thought.

The enemy crew itself was swift and efficient as they manned their deck, throwing lines to knock the _Witch_ off her course and firing off shots to dismantle the crew’s counterattacks. Akko couldn’t help but note that they acted with a sort of… mechanical efficiency to them. They lashed lines with ease but no haste. They shot their pistols with ease but no passion. They acted as good as British sailors ought to, like elements in a machine rather than human beings. Whereas the _Witch_ ’s crew flew across her decks with a fiery passion, fighting for their lives to remain their own, the _Appleton_ ’s crew simply ran and tacked and shot.

And, Akko noted with a strange feeling curling in her stomach, they did not defer to the captain at their helm. Across the _Witch_ ’s deck below her, missives were bellowed out to one another, all leading back like a trail to their captain at the helm who was calling directives with authority. They trusted Captain du Nord with their lives, and she held that trust with grave severity in battle. The crew referred back to her for every decision and called back assent on every command given. Even Constanze waved her cooperation at every given order, so that the captain would know she acknowledged. In contrast, however, the captain of the _Appleton_ shouted his orders and the sailors below him moved to their stations, but they did not give their acknowledgements of his authority.

Thunder cracked in the heavens above them, and Akko had an idea.

Darting from the gunwale, she snatched the captain’s spyglass from her belt and peered through to the enemy’s captain. He was young, from the little that Akko could see through the darkness and driving rain. His coat was fancy, brocaded red wool clasped in gold. He was screaming orders into the night like a banshee, and though she could not hear a word he said, he didn’t look like he screamed them with particular authority or expertise. Sweeping the spyglass over the hull of the ship showed her what she wanted to see—nothing. The hull was clean and shining, even in the night, even in the middle of the Atlantic. Its maiden voyage, then, and the captain was most likely the son of whichever hoity-toity British noble fancied himself a naval commander this week and paid for the commission.

Collapsing the spyglass, Akko pushed it into the pocket of the captain’s coat and secured her cap on her head. “Captain, take us to port! Get us as close to their ship as you can! I can distract them!” She yelled, while in her mind judging the angle from the crow’s nest she’d need. Waves crested and fell beneath them, making the two ships bob up and down beside one another, as if vying for the highest spot in the heavens. The timing would be close, but not impossible.

Captain du Nord looked at her in disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to sail _directly_ _into_ the enemy?”

Unlashing a trunk bolted against the helm, Akko pulled out one of Constanze’s modified harpoons. She slung it over her shoulder and turned to the captain, yelling, “ _Trust me!_ ” before she took off running.

The captain had only a moment to shake her head before she called out the order. “ _Pull hard to port! Take us in close! Gunmaster, get ready! Don’t let them onboard!_ ”

The crew scrambled to adjust course, too pressed for time to even question why the captain wanted them closer to their demise.

Akko streaked across the slippery deck as fast as possible, yelling to their potions master (well, to Sucy, who liked to make potions that occasionally threatened the safety of the ship but mostly worked out alright) as she passed. “ _Sucy! Be ready to drop them on my mark!_ ”

Sucy gave an overly enthusiastic salute from her station at the mizzenmast. “ _Fucken aye, Sir!_ ”

Launching herself onto the ratlines, Akko began pulling herself up at top speed. In such heavy rainfall, the ropes were hard and unforgiving, trying to cut her calloused hands to slivers. Only years at sea saved her palms from shredding as she climbed her way to the top and into the crow’s nest beside Lotte.

“Cover me!” she yelled to Lotte as she pulled the harpoon from across her back and laid its muzzle on the railing facing the _Appleton_ , lining up the shot in her sights.

“Aye, Sir!” Lotte switched her perch to crouch beside Akko, immediately firing off a shot at a sailor on the other deck aiming for Akko’s head poking above the railing. Akko counted herself lucky that this storm saved her from the full force of a rifle firing right beside her ears.

Taking a breath to stay her pounding heart, Akko lined the shot with the _Appleton_ ’s masthead. This was a stupid plan. It was absolutely idiotic. There was no way it would work. But they had already lashed themselves to the _Witch_ , and Akko’s freedom was rapidly narrowing to a point in front of her gun’s sights.

The _Witch_ troughed a wave, the _Appleton_ looming over her, and Akko pulled the trigger. The harpoon’s shot sailed through the air like a breath, striking clean through the masthead and lashing its thirty feet of rope to the _Appleton_.

Without even a moment to spare to appreciate the perfect shot, Akko climbed the nest’s railing, leaning against the mast behind her for steadiness as she wrapped the harpoon’s rope around her offhand forearm. The _Witch_ began to climb her next wave.

It was a monstrous wave, the kind that sent ships to the bottom of the Atlantic without even breaking. It would bring the _Witch_ above the _Appleton_ ’s level, and it would give Akko the height she needed to make it.

The crest loomed moments closer. She looked to Lotte still providing cover fire. Sweeping the tricorn hat from her head, she planted it on her sailor’s and gave her a salute. “Miss Yanson, it’s been an honour,” she said, and before Lotte could even register the words, she leapt.

The wind ripped at her soaked clothing as she sailed through the air, practically flying from one ship to the other like an angel of death. The _Witch_ fell from its wave beneath her as the _Appleton_ rose above it, pulling her along a swift arc in the sky and swinging her up to its gleaming hull. She rounded its stern and swung around back toward the deck, screaming her way into enemy territory.

She landed boot-heel first, using the rope to guide her in an arc around the _Appleton_ ’s mast as she slid across the rain-slicked deck, cutting through three crewmates before they even registered what had happened. Releasing the rope, Akko let herself slide to her knees—thank god this ship was so newly minted, there were barely any signs of wear on its shining boards. Sliding into a stack of sandbags against the gunwales, she spun to her feet and drew her sidearm and her cutlass at once. The gunner five feet from her position yelled out in alarm as she fired a shot into his shoulder, and she didn’t wait to see him drop before she moved on.

Sailors descended upon her in a horde. She had to dodge a knife to the throat, dipping below the man’s guard and sweeping his feet from beneath him. He crashed to the deck, where she slashed his belly with her sword and arced the swing into blocking his mate’s slash. Kicking the man in the gut, she shoved him off with her shoulder. Slash, cut, stab, shoot, slash—the sailors kept coming. Her shoulders ached and her lungs burned, but the fight sang in her blood. She was born for this, and she showed it with glee. She felt _alive_.

Ducking below another man’s guard and cutting his sword from his hand, she chanced a glance over her shoulder to the helm. The captain was flailing his arms petulantly in her direction, screaming something that she couldn’t hear but doubted was anywhere along the lines of “ _Good God, that is the best pirate I’ve ever seen, release their ship immediately on the merit of her alone!_ ”

In her momentary distraction, a sailor slipped past her guard and slashed her across the bicep of her shooting arm. She cried out, her pistol clattering to the deck. She slashed the man across the chest and kicked him away, propelling her backward and onto the steps up to the helm. Blood ran in watery rivulets down her arm as she backed her way up the stairs. The captain merely gaped at her from the helm as she held off his horde of sailors with one arm.

“Evening, Captain!” she called out in an almost leisurely tone, slashing a sailor in the gut. “Lovely weather for a sail tonight, aye?”

“Get off my ship!” The man roared, almost losing his hold on the helm as he did so.

“You were on my ship, first!” Akko ducked a punch from a gunner and gained another step towards the helm. Someone’s cutlass caught her across the cheek, and she could only hope it wasn’t hers. The cut stung, but she’d live. The captain, on the other hand, looked helpless. As she’d hoped, he wasn’t yet experienced enough to be able to steer and shoot a gun at the same time.

“Lawless brigand!”

“Captain, I take offense to that!”

“Kill her!” (This was, of course, directed to his crew, not Akko). And while they had certainly been _attempting_ to do just that before his command, the stairway was narrow, and Akko had the higher ground—perhaps not morally (though it was highly debatable) but definitely physically. She kicked the group’s leader in the nose and gained another step towards the captain.

“You might try a ‘please’ every once in a while, Captain!” She called over her shoulder, blocking another swipe. “A ship’s crew are human beings, too, and I’ve found they generally appreciate basic manners!”

“Shut up!” The captain roared. Testy one, wasn’t he?

“And some ‘thank you’s will improve their morale tenfold, I assure you!”

“Stop telling me how to run my own ship!”

“Well, someone’s got to tell you what you’re doing wrong!” She checked over her shoulder, gauging the distance.

In a flourish, she twisted out of the range of a slash aimed at her neck, slid across the slicked deck, and rose to her feet right behind the captain’s ear, chest pressed against his back, holding her sword beneath his throat. He went rigid against her, hands clenching the helm, but at least he held firm to his bearing—if he let it slip even a fraction in this weather, they were all doomed.

This close, even in the darkness, Akko could see him more clearly. He was even younger than she had thought—barely older than her, in his early twenties at the latest. His dark hair was cut neatly, and he stood perhaps only five inches taller than her, and she undoubtedly had more impressive muscles than him. He wasn’t a particularly imposing man; though Akko supposed that perhaps he would exude more innate power on land, where he had access to the banks that contained his massive wealth.

“Would you like to know what you did wrong this time, Captain?” She called, loud enough so that the crew filling the quarterdeck could hear.

The captain scoffed. “Oh, do please enlighten me before my men slit your throat!”

“As it please you, Sir!” She replied brightly, and she could feel him fume against her. “You treated these fine sailors as your subordinates, and you simply expected them to follow you! You rely completely on the Rule of Kings, when out here on the open sea, there are no thrones for you to cling to!”

“They follow me because I’m their captain!” He shouted, practically throwing a tantrum. “Unhand me!”

Akko ignored his request and continued on, levelling her gaze to the sailors eyeing her warily. She was getting eerily close to making sense, to them. “And how did you gain your captaincy, my lord? Did you earn this vessel? Did you work your way up from sailor? Did you earn their respect? Do you appreciate their work and their loyalty?”

“ _Release me!_ ” He shrieked. “ _Shoot her, you useless bastards!_ ”

The sailors before them stayed their shots. Akko simply tutted, shaking her head. “You’re not a very nice person, Captain, has anyone ever told you that? These fine sailors keep you afloat on the open seas, and you call them useless?”

The captain thrashed against her, and the ship gave a groan of warning as its course shook with his movement. He quickly clamped his hands back onto the helm and corrected their path. Akko snickered. “Can’t even keep her straight, can you? Why the fuck are you even at the helm?”

“Because it’s _my_ ship!” He shrieked, and again, Akko shook her head.

“Wrong again, my lord,” she gestured to the sailors, who, while they hadn’t put their weapons down, had certainly ignored any potential openings Akko may have left in her guard for them to rescue their captain. “It’s their ship, they merely let you steer because they worry you’ll throw a tantrum if they don’t!”

The sailors exchanged glances, as if to say, ‘ _I mean, she’s not_ wrong.’

A glint in the night caught Akko’s eye, but she forced herself to ignore it, instead training her eyes on the man in the front of the small crowd of sailors standing before her and the captain. In the melee, it seemed the crew had become distracted from their assault on the _Witch_ and had come to focus on fighting her instead. Good, she thought. That meant they wouldn’t notice the women jumping across to their ship. 

“A crew should trust their captain, and a captain should trust their crew!” She continued. “A captain’s power is based solely in his crew allowing him to lead! That is how the Rule of Kings works, my lord!”

The sailors at the back of the crew fell silently, and Akko began counting down the seconds in her head, trying to hide her smile.

_Three…_

“Simply put…” She said, carefully, as if it were a great secret of the universe, as if the crew _needed_ to hang onto her every word—and they did, eyes glued to her as though she would bring them absolution. More men fell, almost entirely swallowed up in the night.

_Two…_

She smiled her reckless grin, eyes wild and glee unrestrained. She looked, in the middle of the storm, like a pirate from the storybooks, like a cavalier of old. She looked larger than life, in the lightning crashing around them, in the swell of the sea. She looked like the sea itself.

“…The crew always has the ability to stop believing in it!”

_One._

Akko ducked and spun, kicking the captain’s legs out from underneath him, and shoved him forward with a shoulder, face-first into the melee as the last few remaining of his crew whirled on the women who had knocked their mates unconscious behind them. He caught himself before falling directly on his arse and stood with indignation as he pulled his coat straight about his shoulders. He spat, “Go to _Hell_.”

Akko grinned madly. “You first, Captain, and good sailing to you on your way.”

He opened his mouth, looking for all the world as though he was about to give her a good verbal what-for, when Sucy snuck up behind him like a ghost and covered his mouth and nose with a cloth and he, too, fell unconscious to the deck.

The fight was over in seconds, and the men lay in a pile of bodies, each and every one unconscious at the hands of the potion master and her mates.

Akko stood, grasping the helm of the _Appleton_ with one hand to correct its course, and pressed the other hand to her still-bleeding arm as Sucy ascended the stairs, tossing the cloth soaked in her latest invention into the sea—something to do with chloroform. Akko was no potions master, so she simply had to trust Sucy’s word for whatever it was.

“Thank god, I was running out of things to say!” She said.

“That would certainly be a first,” Sucy snickered, bending down to check the captain’s pulse at his wrist. Behind her, Akko saw Amanda, Lotte, and Hannah finding ropes in the deck’s stores to begin tying up the piles of men at the stairs. More sailors were strewn, injured, across the deck, farther from the helm, but it would be easy work to knock them out as well, while Akko and her crew pilfered the _Appleton_ for anything interesting to steal. This ship would be theirs for a few hours.

“Are they dead?” Akko asked, a wrinkle in her brow. Sure, she was a pirate, and sure, these men had tried very hard to kill her just a few minutes ago, but she didn’t like to kill, if she could help it.

Sucy shook her head. “Just unconscious for a few hours, at least!”

“Lovely, now pass me the captain’s coat, will you? I’m freezing my entire ass off in this rain!”

Sucy snickered again as she liberated the captain of his fancy coat and slipped it over the first mate’s shoulders. “Captain Akko now, are we? Or just want to hide that cut on your arm so the captain doesn’t make you see _the surgeon_?” She gave Akko a pointed look, wiggling her brows.

Akko’s blush was hidden by the dark of night, thankfully, and she chose not to dignify such an absurd question with an answer. Rather, she cast her gaze over the war galley and called, “Drop the mainsail! Let’s slow her down!” 

* * *

An hour later, Akko was crossing the gangplank back to the _Gaelic Witch_ , hauling her sack of pilfered goods over her good shoulder. The other shoulder ached to move, even with the quick tourniquet Sucy had tied around her bicep for her. The storm had mostly subsided by now, leaving only a weak wind and a few stray raindrops hitting her across the nose. She shook her head; she was going to be damp for a _week_.

She looked up from her waterlogged boots to the captain waiting for her at the gunwales with crossed arms and a severe expression. Akko bit back a sigh and hopped down onto the _Witch_ ’s deck.

“Really?” Was all the captain had to say, to begin with.

Akko shrugged. “I had a hunch that they had a weakness. I followed the hunch; they didn’t respect their captain. They didn’t even try to stop me when I got a sword to his throat. It worked, didn’t it?”

“Akko, you flew across to the enemy ship on your own, with no backup, in the middle of a storm!” Captain du Nord yelled. “What if you misjudged the angle of your jump? You would have ended up in the ocean, and we would’ve had no way to rescue you!”

Akko sunk down in her boots a fraction but stood her ground. “Yeah but I didn’t. I knew I could hold their attention just long enough for Sucy to drop them.”

Du Nord quirked a vivid red eyebrow. “And if Sucy had been late to drop them?”

Akko rolled her eyes, readjusting the sack on her shoulder. “Sucy is _never_ late, Captain. You have the finest crew on the seven seas, and we can never lose. The stars will always follow us, remember.”

“ _Roi des cons!_ ” The captain spit roughly to the side. There was anger in her eyes, yes, but there was worry as well. “Fuck that, Akko! You know damn well that no crew is unkillable. Your idiotic gamble paid off this time, but _don’t_ try something like that again without my approval, got it?”

Akko pouted a lip guiltily and nodded. “Aye, Captain.”

“Good,” Chariot said, relaxing her shoulders a fraction. “Now go see the surgeon—Sucy tells me you sliced your shooting arm badly.”

Akko felt her entire face heat with betrayal as she whirled around to yell at Sucy, back aboard the _Appleton_. “ _Sucy are you fucking kidding me!_ ”

Sucy, who didn’t have to hear the conversation to know what Akko was yelling at her about, just laughed and continued her work of lashing the unconscious captain to his helm with Amanda. “The captain asked, Akko, I just gave her an answer!”

Even from where she stood, she could hear Amanda’s raucous laughter. “Just go see the good doctor, Akko, I’m sure she can help with _all_ your _aches_ and—”

Akko dropped her sack of goods to the deck and drew her sidearm, ignoring the bright slice of pain the movement brought, and took aim at Amanda’s bright orange head. “ _Amanda O’Neill I’m gonna fucking_ —”

“ _That wasn’t a request, Akko!_ ” Captain du Nord’s sharp voice cut through her tirade of death threats, silencing her dissent. Akko holstered her pistol and turned back to her captain sheepishly.

“Fine,” she grumbled, grabbing her sack of treasures and dragging it behind her as she stomped below deck, mumbling to herself about “ _stupid crew_ ” and “ _gonna fucking kill them later_.” The crew had long since learned to leave her to her threatening. She would never follow through, but she liked to tell herself that one day she would, just to make herself feel braver than she actually was.

By the time she reached the surgeon’s quarters, she had almost convinced herself that being the first mate on the _Gaelic Witch_ really did make her larger than life. She could almost tell herself that her hand didn’t shake as she politely knocked and waited for the surgeon’s smooth voice to bid her enter.

* * *

Sack of treasure stowed in the corner, Akko sat on the surgeon’s table, trying not to follow the woman with her eyes as she gathered her supplies. She fiddled with the buttons of her new coat awkwardly. “I don’t suppose you’d know how to get bloodstains out of silk, would you?” She asked idly, trying to fill the silence that stretched the room.

The surgeon glanced back at her with a quirked eyebrow— _fuck,_ did that have to be so attractive? Akko dropped her eyes to the floor, praying her cheeks weren’t red. “Keen to keep your new coat, Miss Kagari?” the surgeon asked as she dumped her supplies onto the table beside Akko and pulled up a stool.

“It’s a fine coat, and I won it fair and square,” Akko said, pulling her collar and sitting up straight in a mockery of a noble’s posture. “The kid will have to get himself another one.”

The surgeon inclined her head. “Fine though it may be, I’ll have to ask you to remove it, and your shirt as well, if you please.”

God, Akko could die now. Her heart stuttered in her chest, and she forced her voice to stay stable as she answered with a false bravado. “Why, Doctor, I didn’t know you felt that way,” adding a cheeky grin to sell it.

The surgeon turned her head to the shelves on the opposite walls, reaching for more bandages, but Akko caught a glimpse of the light blush on her cheeks. She bit the inside of her cheek to refrain from pushing it further.

“ _Pirates_ ,” the surgeon muttered to herself ruefully, and Akko snickered. “Just do as I say, please, Miss Kagari. You may hang them over the chair to dry if you wish.”

Akko obliged, eschewing herself of her fine wool coat, decidedly _less_ fine linen shirt (which now, regrettably, sported a long gash in its arm that was soaked in blood), and her boots and socks as well. She laid them out on the back of the simple wooden chair tucked into the desk on the far corner of the room beneath the porthole, her socks and boots on the floor beneath. Finally, she returned to the table at the center of the room in just her breeches and chest bindings. The surgeon set her tools down beside her—a swath of linen bandages, rags, a bottle of rum, a needle and spool of thread, and a steaming bowl of clean water—and pulled up a stool to sit in between Akko’s legs hanging off the table. She barely gave Akko enough time to process this fact before grabbing hold of her arm and studying the wound. It was a long gash, perhaps five inches across her bicep. The bleeding had mostly stopped but pulling her shirt off had apparently reopened some of the clots. Drops of blood rolled down her arm slowly. The surgeon tsked and grabbed for the bowl of clean water and rag.

“It looks a deep wound, but it’s a clean slice,” she said, wiping the blood away with a surprisingly gentle hand, in contrast to her brusque nature. “You’ll need stitches.”

Akko grimaced, grabbing the bottle of rum beside her before the surgeon could. Ripping the cork out with her teeth and spitting it away, she took a long drink. The surgeon gave her a flat look, to which Akko grinned, offering her the bottle. “What? I saved enough for you,” she said.

The surgeon scowled and took the bottle back. “This is to _clean_ the wound, Miss Kagari, not to _drink_ ,” she said crossly, discarding of her bloody rag for a new one, onto which she tipped the rum.

“All rum is drinking rum, my lady,” Akko replied, and though it shouldn’t have been possible, the surgeon’s scowl deepened even further.

Without warning, she grabbed Akko’s arm again and pressed the rum-soaked rag to the gash with _slightly_ more firmness than was strictly necessary.

“ _Jesus fucking—!_ ” Akko screamed, her entire body flinching as she tried to pull her arm away from the burning pain, but the surgeon held fast, with just the slightest hint of smugness in her deep blue eyes.

“I’ll thank you to watch your language in my surgery, Miss Kagari,” she replied politely, and Akko would be lying if she said it wasn’t an attractive look on her.

Akko scowled, but made no further retort on the matter.

A long minute stretched between them as the surgeon cleaned the wound—thankfully, with a bit more gentleness—and Akko sat quietly, looking anywhere else in the room besides the woman sitting entirely too close.

The surgeon’s quarters were small (as was everything else aboard such a small vessel as the _Witch_ ) but they were… nice. Warm, in a way the rest of the ship wasn’t. Tidy, almost… homely. The wooden surfaces were worn with time, but there was no dirt in its boards. The small bunk in the corner of the room was neatly made with sheets that looked clean enough, if a little shabby around the hems. Books were housed in a closed cabinet along the wall opposite the bed, and the desk was very neatly organized with writing instruments and sheafs of parchment. A single lantern hung above the table upon which she sat, providing the amplest light for the surgeon to work in at this hour of night. The effect was one of… _niceness_. It was a _nice_ room. It was _nice_ to for once be in a room that didn’t look like it was “swabbed” by Amanda every other month.

Akko hadn’t been in this room since the surgeon was brought on board by Chariot two months ago. Before that it had merely been another storage room, and the crew had had to stitch each other up after battles. Akko still wasn’t sure _why_ Chariot had brought this woman on board with them—well, sure, finally having a surgeon would make their chances of survival on the open seas soar—but why _this_ surgeon, and why _now_ , Akko wasn’t sure. All Chariot had told her was that this woman was “a woman in need of a fresh start, like the rest of us.” She had said her name was Anna, but Akko knew that was a lie.

She was, unfortunately, also beautiful, so Akko was finding it rather difficult to hold the lie against her.

All pirates lied, as a matter of course, but her crew on the _Witch_ were different. They may lie to the rest of the world, but they were always honest with one another. It was part of why they worked so effectively as a crew.

“So…” Akko began awkwardly, clearing her throat to fill the silence that had stretched to discomfort. The surgeon glanced up at her briefly with a raised brow before returning her eyes to her work as she threaded her needle. “Uh, how are you liking the ship?”

The surgeon pursed her lips and tied off the end of her thread. She stood, reaching up to the lantern that hung above their heads. She had to stretch just to quite reach the lantern’s door, which— _good Lord_ —lifted her linen shirt just a fraction up her belly. Akko felt as if she might pass out in the few seconds it took the surgeon to open the lantern door, stick her needle into the flame, replace the lantern door, and take her seat once again.

Finally, once seated and studying Akko’s arm, she answered stiffly. “It is… agreeable, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

The surgeon gave her an irritated look, perhaps at her unwillingness to let the diplomatically noncommittal answer slide, and held up her needle. “I’m going to begin stitching now,” she said. “If you don’t want to lose your arm, I suggest you stay still.”

Akko, nodded, bracing herself, but she still swore colourfully as the surgeon made her first stitches.

“I believe I requested you watch your language in my office, Miss Kagari,” the surgeon said sharply, not looking up from her careful work.

“I shouldn’t think it applies when you’re _stabbing me in the fucking arm_ ,” Akko replied through gritted teeth. She reached blindly for the rum bottle beside her. This time, thankfully, the surgeon said nothing as she took a swig.

“ _Pirates_ ,” the surgeon sighed instead. “You act like you’re tough and unkillable, but you squawk like a bird at a little tiny needle.”

Akko sucked her teeth. “You talk like you’re not one of us.”

It was meant to be an offhand comment, but the surgeon stiffened, her stitches pausing momentarily. She looked at Akko, haughty, almost _offended_. “And what makes you think I _am_?” She asked, a proper lilt to her voice.

Now it was Akko’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You live on our ship, you eat our food, you reap our safety—you’re a pirate, mate.” She said coldly, her temper rising. The surgeon scowled and returned to her work. “Doesn’t matter where you learned to read or where you got that fancy accent or whatever the fuck you say your name is; if you’re on this ship, it’s because you’re a _fucking_ pirate.”

The surgeon’s face remained passively sour, but Akko could see the muscles twitch in her sharp jaw. “I don’t have an accent,” she ground out, adamant as she continued to push that fake American voice out of her mouth.

Akko rolled her eyes. “It’s a convincing fake, I’ll give you that. But it sounds too proper to be real. Go ahead, use your real accent—I won’t judge.”

The surgeon glared at her arm for a moment, as if debating whether or not it was worth it to just stop her stitches halfway through and let Akko’s arm fall off. Akko watched her in turn, her chin jutted out stubbornly, burgundy eyes blazing.

Then the surgeon sighed. “I am merely here due to a lack of other options, Miss Kagari,” she said in a posh British accent, sounding like she’d just stepped out of Buckingham Palace itself. Akko tried not to let her smug smile show. “I am not… I am not a criminal like you.”

At this, Akko simply snorted. The surgeon cut her a sharp look. “That’s not how this works, mate,” she said. “If the Brits raid this vessel tomorrow, they won’t arrest us and let you go simply because you’re only the ship’s surgeon and you never _personally_ pissed them off. They’ll arrest you like they’ll arrest me, like they’ll arrest the captain, like they’ll arrest everyone we’ve ever met right down to the farmer we buy our wheat from. The Brits don’t play fairness like that. Consorting with pirates is still piracy, under their laws. You’re just as damned as I am.”

The surgeon pursed her lips. “I am well aware the…” she cleared her throat. “I am well aware their laws are not fair, Miss Kagari. But even so, I am not like you.”

At that, Akko turned her head and spit across the room, onto the surgeon’s lovely clean floors. The surgeon gaped, her cheeks flushing and mouth falling open in outrage, but Akko cut her off before she could start. “Bull _shit_ , mate,” she spat, jabbing an accusatory finger at the surgeon. “Fucking _bullshit_. You’re here because you’re _exactly_ like me—like everyone on this fucking ship. You’re here because you were given a place in the world that you didn’t want, so you ran. You’re here because someone told you the rules of life and you didn’t accept them. That’s how we _all_ end up on these ships, in the middle of the ocean, fighting for our fucking lives—because, if we weren’t, we wouldn’t _have_ lives. Not lives that are our own, anyway.”

The surgeon looked stricken, shocked by Akko’s sudden outburst, but Akko wasn’t finished yet. “We’re all running from something on the other side of the law; that’s how we ended up here. British law wouldn’t accommodate us, so we made a system of our own that would. So did you. You’re _exactly_ one of us.”

The surgeon was still for a long moment, turning Akko’s words over in her head, then picked her needle back up in thought. She was only halfway done with the stitches, silently resuming her work. Akko watched the storm clouds draw across her pretty face as she mulled it over.

Perhaps Akko had been a bit too brusque—but then, it had been warranted, hadn’t it? This woman came onto _her_ ship, used up _their_ resources, took advantage of _their_ protection, and yet condemned what they did? When all they were trying to do was survive in a world which actively sought to destroy them? It wasn’t right.

The surgeon was nearly done with her neat stitches when she began, carefully, in a small voice, “What, ah… What does the captain run from? On the… on the other side of the law?”

Akko considered her confused expression for a moment. She seemed… troubled by Akko’s words. Akko gave her a conspiratorial smirk, as if wanting to test how much of piracy she could handle. “Many, _many_ charges of theft and heresy, mainly, but not in the way you’d think,” she said. The surgeon gave her a cautiously interested look, as if urging her to go on, and so she did. “She was a French noble by birth, actually. But she… well. Her father was not a good man. As she grew older, she watched him steal from people who needed the most, in the name of his _family_ —his estate—and it made her sick. So she devised a plan. And she executed the plan. And she robbed her father blind and gave it to the nearest village. And her father had the village razed by French soldiers—he accused the villagers themselves of being thieves and killed them all to get his gold back. So she left. Never looked back. A blacksmith’s daughter from a nearby town took pity on her, got her a spot on someone’s crew. She commissioned the _Gaelic Witch_ a few years later, with money she’d stolen from her father’s estate after he died. He was never even charged for his crimes.”

The surgeon hummed thoughtfully, tying off her thread—the stitches were done. “And… Lotte?” Akko raised an eyebrow in question, and the surgeon explained. “I… I want to understand the rest of your crew, if you please. I want to know why anyone would…” She trailed off, biting her lip, self-conscious.

Akko smirked. “Why anyone would become a pirate?” She finished. The surgeon nodded guiltily.

Akko admired the neat stitches on her arm, considering. “Lotte was a decidedly _less_ romantic tale than the captain. Her parents owned a neat little shop in Scandinavia—a haberdasher’s, I believe. She was happy. But her father wanted to marry her off to a merchant who was looking to buy his stock, and this merchant was—not a good man.” She paused for a moment, trying not to let thoughts of Lotte’s ‘betrothed’ turn her stomach. “He was… cruel, and awful, and he… _hurt_ her. But the law says she is his property… We found her on the docks of Copenhagen, half-starved and scared shitless that he would find her. We promised never to bring her back to Scandinavia.”

The surgeon nodded darkly, chewing her bottom lip as she began wrapping a strip of linen bandage around Akko’s arm. “And Sucy?”

At this, Akko snickered, the grimness of Lotte’s tale replaced with glee. “Charges of witchcraft if you can believe it. Her village found her working her alchemy in her family’s cellar, and she was charged with witchcraft.”

The surgeon gave a slight breath of laughter, the ghost of a smile gracing her stony face. Akko was almost elated. “I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting Miss Manbavaran once or twice since boarding this ship, but witchcraft certainly does… seem her style.”

Akko grinned in agreement. “She wears her charges with pride whenever we take shore leave. I have to snatch the pointed hat from her head every time.”

At this, the surgeon actually _did_ chuckle, and she actually _did_ smile, and Akko really _was_ elated. She had a beautiful smile. And she seemed… pensive at these revelations of her crewmembers. She tied the bandage around Akko’s bicep, making sure it fit securely to staunch any further bleeding. Akko tried to resist leaning into her further. She was infuriating, and a bit stuck up, but she was… well.

She was rather beautiful, in the soft light of the lantern, with that thoughtful expression on her face. Akko took a moment to consider this woman before her.

She was slender, elegant—far more elegant than any woman had business being, aboard a pirate ship. The sleeves of her linen shirt were rolled neatly to above her elbows, and atop was a brown woolen waistcoat that fit her slim frame. Her bright golden hair was pulled up off her neck in a loose knot with a leather cord, but it escaped its confines in wild curls about her lovely face. Slender jaw, high cheekbones, naturally rosy lips, sharp nose, and those deep blue eyes— _fuck_. They reminded Akko of the deepest parts of the ocean, as if this woman were the sea come to stare back at her after all these years.

“This world is not built for women,” Akko continued. “We’re—rejected. Thrown out, because we don’t want to accept that we have no power over our own lives. We built our own world on this ship, where we can live freely, as equal to men and to each other.”

Akko watched the surgeon, lost in thought for a moment, fingers shyly fiddling with the ends of the bandage on Akko’s arm. “And…” she began in a quiet voice, almost a whisper in the night. “What is it you are running from?”

Akko thought about this for a moment, then answered truthfully. “Boredom, I think,” she said, her voice almost as low as the surgeon’s was, as if this moment was too fragile to speak louder than that. “When I was just a child, my family and I didn’t have much—nothing, really. We… we had nothing. But one day, this woman came to our farm, and she was…” Akko shook her head, lost in the memories already. “She was _magnificent_. Strong and whip-smart, and— _kind_. She asked for a hot meal and a safe place to sleep for the night. My parents let her sleep in the barn, and after they’d gone to bed, I snuck out there, and she told me stories all night long. She told me all about how she came to be a pirate, how she would steal from the nobles who cast her out, how she would give it all back to people like me—the poor, the ones who have nothing to their names. She told me the most wonderful tales, and by the time the sun came up, I knew I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be larger than life, a hero to those who need one, not just another farmer in the fields…”

She trailed off for a moment, her eyes sparkling with the memories of her childhood fantasy, and the surgeon was swept up with her, in the bright emotion of her words. “Six years later, I found her on the docks again and asked to join her crew. And here I am today,” she grinned, puffing out her chest with pride.

Without realizing it, the surgeon had held her breath in anticipation, her hand lingering on Akko’s bicep as she spoke. She let her breath out now, blinking as she fell out of the tale at its end. Noticing her hand had been laying flat on the swell of Akko’s arm, she snatched it away quickly, ducking her head and trying to hide her blush.

“You are…” she began, somewhat unsteadily. “You are quite the storyteller, Miss Kagari.”

“Akko,” the first mate corrected her finally, suddenly feeling unsatisfied with the stilted address in such an intimate conversation. Then she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s only Miss Kagari if we’re under attack.” She added a wink for effect, and it looked like the surgeon’s heart skipped a beat.

“Diana,” the surgeon said in a tight voice, licking her lips to try to return some moisture to her suddenly parched mouth. “My—my name. Is Diana.”

Akko nodded thoughtfully, her grin fading into a smaller smile that was more genuine, more intimate. “And what is it you’re running from, Diana?” She asked.

Diana’s face fell, her smile shattering as her back went rigid and her cheeks went red, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. Any openness in her eyes had shuttered in an instant, and she pushed up from her stool to move away as quickly as she could. “I—that is not quite proper to ask, Miss Kagari, and I shall thank you to respect my privacy—”

Before she could move too far away, Akko caught her hand—the one that had been lying on her bicep just a minute ago—and pulled her forward again. Her grip was gentle but firm, tugging her back to stand directly in front of Akko. Carefully, Akko’s fingertips traced the lines on her palm, and Diana had to suppress the shiver in her spine. Akko didn’t look up at her face, just kept a thoughtful gaze on Diana’s hand as she spoke. “D’you know, we were docked near Blytonbury, ‘round six months back—the ship had just been attacked by navy patrol. Normally we wouldn’t dock in Mother England herself, mind you, but we had to restock quickly after the battle.”

Her hands were wonderfully calloused from years working aboard a ship, scratching against Diana’s skin, and sending sparks shooting up her arm. Diana was forced to prevent herself from melting right into her arms. She tried to speak, but nothing would come out of her mouth. Akko continued on. “And… it’s the most curious thing. We spent the evening in a local tavern, for some much-needed shore leave, and every man in that place sang songs about the Lord Cavendish’s daughter.” Diana’s stomach plummeted. “Said she was the most beautiful woman in all of England—shining, heavenly, like an angel sent to Earth. And they laughed all night long about the Lord’s worst-kept secret: that he had walked in on his perfect daughter being undressed by a scullery maid in the pantry.” Akko looked her in the eye, then, and Diana tried to hide the tears burning in the corners of hers. “Would you happen to know her, Diana?”

“I—I—” Diana felt trapped, terrified, her heart pounding as she looked all around the cabin for an escape, but Akko held her hand firm, continuing on.

“You’ll find no reprimand for your ‘crimes’ here, Diana,” she said in a calm voice. “Hell, half the women on this ship would be found guilty of the same.”

Diana froze, her heart still hammering in her ribs, but her eyes locking on Akko’s in confusion. “I—what?”

Akko raised a brow. “Haven’t you noticed Hannah and Barbara share a bunk?” Diana stared at her blankly. “Amanda having girls in every port this side of the Atlantic? Shit, even the captain is married to her mechanic in Nassau.”

Diana blinked in surprise at that. “Pardon?”

“As a word to the wise, if she ever says she’s going to ‘ _pick up some parts from Croix_ ’, do _not_ offer to help her bring the delivery back,” Akko said. “There is no delivery. She thinks she’s subtle about it, but we all know she’s visiting her wife. It’s best just to give them space and wait for her to return to the ship when they’re done.”

Diana’s mind had gone blank. “W—wife—?”

Akko shook her head a little. “Not in the eyes of British law, mind you, but in our laws—it’s just one of the many perks of sailing with us,” she gave Diana a wicked grin.

Diana sat back on her stool in a daze, so much new information swimming around in her head, as if the ocean had poured in through her ears. “They’re… married…?”

Akko thought on it for a moment. “Not in the traditional sense. But in the sense that they love each other, they live together when we take shore leave in Nassau, and there’s a document in the captain’s office that’s notarized by a lawyer of less than upstanding morals which says that, in the event of tragedy, all of her belongings and fortunes should go to Croix? They’re sickeningly married, aye.”

Diana nodded slowly, before another thought struck her, making her straighten her spine in indignation. “You knew who I was, and you didn’t say anything?” She demanded.

“I had my suspicions,” Akko grinned, spreading her hands in complacency. “What can I say? I’m a pirate, my lady. We’re mavericks by trade.” 

Diana scowled again, but it was much weaker than before, almost playful. Akko practically beamed. “And so, what, you devised a plan to get me alone?” Diana challenged. “Get me to admit my misgivings about piracy, so that you could berate me for my views, reveal the secrets of your crew, and tell me the name and location of your captain’s beloved, just to get my guard down and accuse me of—of _indiscretions_? What if your hunch had been wrong? What if I were a spy for the British navy, and you’d just given me everything I needed to tear your lives apart?”

Akko shook her head, still smiling wide. “Not a chance, my lady. No one would _ever_ think I’m that clever,” she said, reaching forward for Diana’s hand again. This time, Diana was expecting it when Akko tugged her to lean closer until her thighs were framed by Akko’s knees hanging off the table, but it didn’t make her heart stutter any less than before. Flipping her hand over, Akko resumed tracing the lines of her palm with a calloused fingertip. It was a lovely feeling, Diana thought. “Your hands are too soft, see? You were raised to entertain party guests and be a decoration in your husband’s estate. And most sailors can barely read—the captain only taught me how when I joined her ship—but you talk like Shakespeare’s your closest friend. You’ve barely said two words to the crew since you joined the ship, too. You take your meals alone in your cabin. You don’t even drink our rum. That’s some shitty spying if that’s what you’ve been up to. You’re no sailor, Diana, and you’re no spy, either.”

Diana swallowed dryly, leaning forward even more, bracing her other arm on the edge of the table beside Akko’s hip, effectively trapping Akko in between her arms.

She tried to chide herself for it—why couldn’t she lean away? Why couldn’t she stop listening? Why did she have to—to _flirt_ with this _pirate_?

_But_ , some small voice spoke in the back of her mind, _this pirate makes sense_. _This pirate knows who you are, and she has not condemned you for it. You’ll be safe here, on this ship, for the first time in your life—truly_ safe _to be yourself. The world cannot catch you when you sail with the wind._

Diana thought of her life _before_ —before her father had seen her for who she truly was and cast her out to die on the streets. Before she had been unmasked as the shame upon his precious and holy “Cavendish legacy.” Parties and ballgowns and ladies in waiting and endless, _endless_ suitors. She had rejected every single man presented to her, promising her father that ‘ _of course she would marry someday, but she wanted it to be for love, not just gain of property._ ’ But she was a lady of the British nobility; her fate had been hurtling towards her like a comet, unstoppable and burning everything in its path. She’d known she couldn’t escape it forever; that eventually her father would win, and she would be married off to some pompous lord to pop out an heir and further their fortunes.

She had never wanted for anything in her life, and it had been stiff and miserable. Every day she had been trapped by choices that were never really hers to make.

And here was this woman, right in front of her, giving her a decision to make. Lean away, move on, not let this woman change her; or lean in, and listen, and let Akko change her point of view, let her see what it’s like to do something simply because she _wanted_ to, because it felt _good_.

_But only pirates_ want, said a voice in the back of her mind. She found she didn’t care.

Akko was… _hypnotizing_. She was dangerous, and she was beautiful. Her voice was rough from years spent yelling over the crash of ocean waves. Her skin was tanned from days spent out in the brutal sun. Hard muscles swelled in her arms and shoulders, but she was soft. Her hair was a rich brown, cut short just above her shoulders, and her eyes were the most curious shade of burgundy—brown, but reddish in the low light of the lantern hanging above them. But what drew Diana to lean closer most of all was the air of recklessness about her, like Diana was staring down the mouth of a deep chasm, and she didn’t know where it would go. She smiled, and Diana wanted to know what made her happy. She laughed, and Diana wanted to know what was so funny. She raised an eyebrow, and Diana wanted to drown in her.

For the first time in her life, Diana _wanted_.

“And… what if that had been my game all along?” She said in a hoarse whisper. “What if… I had been trying to make you think I wasn’t a spy?”

Akko quirked an eyebrow. “Was it what you were doing?” She asked, her fingertips travelling up Diana’s hand to her forearm, trailing lightly over her pale skin in a soft caress.

Diana shivered, a small grin on her lips. “You pirates are awfully forward.”

“This is a dangerous life, my lady. You learn to take what pleasures you can when they’re right in front of you.” Her hand moved farther up Diana’s arm, playing with the material of her linen shirt. “Now tell me, Diana. This… scullery maid… does she wait for you, in Blytonbury?”

Diana shook her head. “She was a lovely woman, but she was just… fun, for the time. I do not wait for her and she does not wait for me.”

“Ah, so the British nobility _have_ heard of the concept of _fun_?”

“Are you going to kiss me, Miss Kagari, or am I going to continue to make a fool of myself a while longer?”

“As the lady wishes.”

The door smashed open.

“ _HEY AKKO, ARE YA DONE GETTING FIXED BY THE HOT LADY DOCTOR? CAPTAIN WANTS TO SEE YA!_ ”

“ _AMANDA O’NEILL, I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!_ ”

Akko swiftly pulled her sidearm from her belt and pulled the knock back, pointing the barrel at Amanda’s head. Amanda, for her part, didn’t even flinch as she looked down the barrel of Akko’s pistol, merely stood in the doorway of the surgeon’s office with a devilish grin stretched across her face.

Diana sighed and pinched her nose, standing up from her stool. “Thank you, Miss O’Neill. Please do not shoot anyone in my surgery, Miss Kagari,” she said smoothly, a cool mask sliding over her face at once.

Akko blinked, slowly replacing her pistol in her belt as Diana had asked. “You’re free to go now,” Diana continued in a detached voice that bellied none of the tenderness which had overcome her just moments before. “Change those dressings once a day for the next two weeks and be mindful you do not pop any of my stitches.”

Diana busied herself with cleaning up the bloody rags and tools from the table as Akko quietly pulled on the rest of her clothes, which were only mildly damp anymore, though her boots did still _squelch_ when she walked. Amanda watched the increasingly awkward scene with visible elation, her most wicked grin plastered on her face, and Akko knew this was something she would never live down. She could face down a hundred war galleys on her own with naught but a pistol and a pair of boots, and she’d still never live this down.

She made to follow Amanda out of the surgery, but Diana stopped her with a light hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see a touch of anxiety in her deep blue eyes, a shy yet hopeful smile on her face. “Come see me before you retire for the evening, if you please?”

Akko felt like her heart could burst.

Amanda looked like she had been given command of the entire British navy.

_Fuck it_. Standing up on her tip toes to reach, Akko placed a quick kiss on the surgeon’s cheek. “As the lady wishes,” she whispered in her ear with a grin, and she could swear she saw Diana’s eyes flutter closed and lean into her lips.

Twirling smoothly away, she sauntered out of the surgeon’s office, not waiting for Amanda to follow her, cackling as she closed the door behind them.

Diana pretended not to hear Akko soundly punch Amanda in the gut for interrupting as soon as the door was closed. Not that she could do much to prevent it, in her current state. She leaned back against her examination table, blushing as she touched her cheek in wonder.

_Fuck_ , she was in trouble.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! Thanks for reading! This one-shot was inspired by [@cabbagestrand](https://cabbagestrand.tumblr.com/)'s awesome Pirate AU on tumblr, go check out their art!! They're super talented and it's amazing!! 
> 
> Also I just wanna say that while I do have _some_ experience with boats, I am by no means a sailor, and I am also not even close to a doctor. I haven't done biology since grade 10 and I don't plan on starting ever, so if I got anything wrong with the naval battle or Diana's medical treatments, I don't want to hear it. I know I probably got it wrong, and I'm okay with that. Just please don't take any of this as actual medical advice. If you ever find yourself on the wrong end of a naval cutlass, please seek actual informed help from a medical professional, and not from a vastly uninformed fic writer on AO3. 
> 
> (And yes, the title is from the song We Come Running by Youngblood Hawke). 
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr if you want [@astrophysical-bean](https://astrophysical-bean.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> -Bean


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